


But If You Close Your Eyes

by burn_me_down



Category: SEAL Team (TV)
Genre: Action, Brotherhood, Gen, Hurt Clay Spenser, Hurt Trent Sawyer, Hurt/Comfort, Recovery, Sleep Deprivation, Suspense, Team as Family, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-21 13:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20694359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burn_me_down/pseuds/burn_me_down
Summary: While waiting for rescue, Trent spends 53 hours fighting to keep himself and a critically injured Clay alive. It’s even less fun than it sounds, and in the aftermath, Trent’s life unexpectedly starts to spiral out of control.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from _Pompeii_ by Bastille.

It’s just before sunrise when the building collapses.

Trent is reasonably certain that he never actually loses consciousness. There’s the resounding _boom_ of an explosion, the world shakes and seems to flip sideways, and then he’s on his back, blinking against dust and smoke, arm up to protect his face from the steady trickle of fine rubble filtering down from the concrete slab that’s come to rest a few feet above him.

His head throbs, and his throat burns, and judging by the cacophony of aches he is likely bruised pretty much everywhere, but he doesn’t think anything is broken. Can’t sense any telltale signs of serious internal injury when he tentatively shifts and tries to sit up.

It’s only then, after he has evaluated himself and determined that he’s probably more or less okay, that Trent remembers he wasn’t alone in the building.

Clay. Shit.

They’d been on overwatch together. When the building came down, they were on their way to rejoin their teammates and head for exfil. Trent was in the lead and had just reached the ground floor when everything went sideways. Did Spenser even make it down the stairs?

Trent gives himself a minute to get his bearings, try to orient himself within the crumbled, shifted space. He listens, hearing nothing except the soft shush and raindrop clatter of trickling dust and falling pebbles.

At the moment of the explosion and collapse, Trent and Clay were hauling ass, because the rest of Bravo was at least a block away and things outside were starting to get hot. Trent knows their boys will come for them if they can, but given the situation, that’s a hell of a big ‘if.’

For the moment, at least, there’s no sign of enemy combatants.

No sign of Clay either, or anyone else on Bravo. Trent tries his radio, but finds that it’s unsurprisingly broken.

For all he is currently able to tell, that explosion could have killed everyone else, left him all alone as the only survivor in this godforsaken, bombed-out city.

He doesn’t let himself dwell on that feeling; it washes over him, and then he gets moving, crawling across the rubble back toward where he remembers the stairs being, where he should have the best chance of finding Spenser. He lifts the collar of his T-shirt over his mouth and nose to try to filter out at least some of the choking dust and lingering smoke.

There’s a little bit of early gray light starting to filter down through cracks in the crumbled roof and ceiling, providing just enough illumination to guide Trent in his search. He stays as quiet as he can, weaving between fallen slabs of building, moving slowly and stiffly but without experiencing excessive weakness or severe pain, which is a good sign.

He can’t find Clay. Which isn’t.

His teammate’s absence, paired with the stifling silence around him, starts to get to Trent a little. He breathes slow and deep, working to keep his heart rate under control. Starts to look more closely at all those chunks of rebar-threaded concrete he’s been crawling over and around, because if Spenser ended up under one of those…

Before Trent has time to think about it too much, there’s the faint clatter of shifting rubble, then a barely audible groan that’s one of the best sounds he has ever heard.

Trent manages to track the noise back to its point of origin: a tumbled pile of small rubble from which a dust-coated hand is protruding. No other part of Spenser is visible.

Clay’s curled fingers twitch, and the rubble shifts a bit more as he makes another sound, a sort of low whine that’s almost a whimper.

At almost exactly the same time, Trent hears yelling from outside. Much too close. Not English.

As silently as possible, he scrambles over the last few feet of jagged, tumbled concrete, flattens himself next to the pile of rubble, and reaches out to squeeze Spenser’s hand. “Shh,” he breathes. “Shh, Clay. Don’t move.”

Trent wants nothing more than to dig his teammate out of there, find out what injury could cause him to make a sound like that and then do whatever is necessary to make it better, but if those enemy combatants locate them right now, they’re both dead. Or worse.

Please let Clay be coherent enough to understand that he has to be quiet.

Apparently he is, because he goes still and silent, and then shakily squeezes Trent’s hand back.

They wait. The voices circle the building, carrying on an animated conversation. Clay probably understands them, or would if he were clear-headed; Trent can decipher almost none of it, no more than a few scattered words here and there.

Even after the voices start to draw away into the distance, Trent forces himself to hold, listening to the slow thunder of his heart in his ears, dull pain spearing through his temple and orbital socket with each beat. After a few minutes of unbroken silence, he finally can’t stand it any more and scrambles back up to his knees, carefully pulling away small pieces of concrete to expose the man buried underneath.

Once his face is uncovered, Spenser squints against the pale early light, lifting a hand to shield his eyes. A gluey mix of concrete dust and congealing blood has plastered strands of hair to his forehead. He’s pale and seems shaken and a little confused, but his breathing is good and his pulse is strong and steady. The gash in his hairline is superficial, and there’s no indication of significant head injury.

All in all, it could have been a whole lot worse. Despite the still-terrible air quality, Trent draws a full breath that finally eases the ache in his chest.

Dropping his face down close to Spenser’s ear, he says softly, “Talk to me. What hurts?”

Clay blinks, furrows his eyebrows. “Ribs,” he whispers back, then winces, squeezing his eyes shut. “Left leg might be broken,” he adds through gritted teeth.

Wouldn’t be surprising, given that it appears the biggest chunk of concrete to have fallen on Spenser is still situated directly over his left shin.

Moving aside the rest of the crumbled rubble allows Trent to confirm Clay’s suspicion about his leg. There’s no open wound, thank God, but there is visible deformity that likely indicates a displaced tibial shaft fracture. Hard to tell whether the fibula is also broken, but based on the force involved, Trent would imagine it probably is.

Basically, Bravo Six isn’t going to be walking anywhere for a while.

After dosing his teammate with morphine, then checking the pulse in Spenser’s ankle and confirming that it’s reasonably strong, Trent loosely splints the leg to try to stabilize it, closing his ears to the choked-off gasps of pain that come from Clay each time the limb is touched.

Once Trent has done what he can for the fracture, he moves on to Spenser’s ribs. A couple of them are maybe cracked, but probably not broken. Of more concern is the bruise, already turning an ugly mottled purple, that is wrapped around Clay’s left side. Trent’s heart sinks a little when he tugs up Spenser’s shirt and catches a glimpse of that discoloration, because it looks too damn much like internal bleeding to him.

Clay’s pulse and blood pressure are still good. He isn’t showing signs of shock, and while his abdomen is obviously sore based on his reactions, it isn’t rigid. Right now all Trent can do is hope that it’s just a small vein, some sort of slow bleed that will resolve on its own, with no organ damage or anything more serious involved.

Trent is turning back toward his med bag to put away supplies when the world seems to ripple like water that’s had a stone thrown into it, and he has to put a hand down to keep from tipping over. It takes him a second to realize that there’s been no second explosion; nothing in the world has actually shifted. It’s just this goddamn headache taking it up another notch.

“Trent,” Clay says softly, his fingers closing over Trent’s wrist. He’s a little loopy, eyes glazed from the morphine, but that doesn’t keep him from looking worried when he asks, “You good?”

Trent nods, swallowing back a surge of nausea.

“You sure?” Spenser’s tone is gentle but insistent. “Got blood in your hair.”

He sighs, zips up his med bag, and admits, “Might have a mild concussion.”

Clay pats his arm. “Sit,” he urges. “Rest. I’m okay for now, and the guys will be here soon to pull us out.” When Trent doesn’t respond, he adds with an upward, questioning lilt, “Right?”

Spenser sounds so hopeful that it breaks Trent’s heart a little, but he can’t bring himself to give anything but an honest answer. “They’ll come if they can. But it was pretty bad out there.”

Clay barely seems to hear him. Eyes sliding closed, he whispers, “They’ll be here. We just gotta… gotta hold out till then.”

Trent doesn’t argue. He sits down, takes a few sips of water, breathes. Tries to decide whether he should give Spenser any fluids by mouth with the potential risk of internal bleeding. It’s a decision he’ll get to put off a little longer, because Clay has dozed off.

Outside, there’s intermittent gunfire, never anywhere close, and the occasional distant explosion. Those always raise Trent’s heart rate, sharpen his awareness of the damaged structure looming overhead, but other than a few pebbles clattering down, there are no further collapses.

Even if he could get Clay on his feet, Trent doesn’t see a way out, not without moving a hell of a lot of concrete first. And even if they _could_ escape this building… well, they probably wouldn’t like what awaited them in the streets outside.

As the day wears on, things in their immediate vicinity stay surprisingly quiet. That’s both good, because it means that by some miracle the enemy combatants must not have any idea they’re here, and bad, because it also means Bravo hasn’t been able to come for them yet.

Out on the street it’s probably hot, but the dim, cavern-like environment of the collapsed building remains surprisingly cool. Trent drinks more water, eats half a protein bar, takes some mild painkillers to try to loosen up the vice that seems to have closed around his temples.

He waits. No one comes.

Clay sleeps fitfully for a few hours, then wakes up confused and in pain. His blood pressure is down; his pulse rate is up. When Trent lightly touches Spenser’s eggplant-purple side, he lets out a choked whimper and tries to pull away.

Shit.

Trent has a single bag of blood in his kit. By the time the indirect sunlight fades to the gentle gold of evening, he knows he’s going to have to use it.

Will it be good enough to keep Spenser stable until someone can come for them? God only knows, but it’s the best Trent has right now. All he can do is run the transfusion and then hope like hell that the bleed will stop on its own - and if it doesn’t, that DEVGRU will find a way to pull them out of here before Clay goes into hypovolemic shock.

The fading sunlight lends urgency to Trent’s movements; he doesn’t want to have to resort to using a penlight, afraid that it might show through a crack somewhere and draw in the wrong kind of attention.

He’s halfway through retrieving the blood and IV tubing when he hears the voices, faint but growing steadily closer.

Trent freezes in place, barely breathing, dropping a hand to Clay’s shoulder. Glancing down, he sees the glint of glazed, barely-open eyes. When Spenser manages to scrape together enough focus to look at his teammate’s face, Trent settles a finger over his lips in warning. Clay nods almost imperceptibly.

Please let them just walk on by. Please.

They don’t.

The voices keep coming until they’re right outside. There’s a pause, and then the scrape and clatter of rubble being moved aside at the far wall.

Pale as chalk, Spenser breathes, “They’re coming in. Give me my gun.”

Clay’s hands are shaking and he can barely keep his eyes open. Trent hands him the Glock anyway.

If they go down, they’ll both go down fighting. Trent might not be able to save Spenser’s life, but he can at least give him that.

It isn’t enough. But it’s all he has.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a lot of concrete to move, which means it takes the tangos a while to actually get inside the building. That’s fortunate because it gives Trent time to get his aching, muddled head in gear and realize that maybe going out in a blaze of glory isn’t their only option.

In the pale, fading evening light, he does a quick visual sweep of the environment and finds a spot where a large slab of concrete from the top story has come to rest at an angle against the still-standing back wall of the building. It looks like there’s just enough room for two men to squeeze into the sheltered pool of shadow hiding between that slab and the wall.

The thought of crawling under there makes Trent’s skin prickle. The slab looks heavy as hell, and if it’s unstable, if it shifts and falls on them...

Well, their alternative is to stay out here and die, so they’re just going to have to risk it.

“Brave Sir Robin bravely ran away, away,” Trent whispers to himself, tamping down the hysterical laugh that wants to escape. Then he pats Clay’s arm, leans in close to his teammate’s ear and says, “We’re gonna hide, okay?”

He doesn’t give Spenser a chance to respond, to agree or argue or anything else. Just throws his med bag over his shoulder, hauls Clay up and gets moving, tossing one last glance back to make sure they haven’t left behind any telltale evidence that they were here.

Their retreat is quiet but not exactly silent. Leaning on Trent and hopping awkwardly on one foot, Clay stumbles, jars his broken leg, and grits his teeth on a whimper that still manages to escape. Trent’s feet scuff over broken concrete with every uneven step.

If Clay and Trent are lucky, the tangos won’t be able to hear them over their own loud conversation and the scrape and clatter of their rubble-moving. If Clay and Trent _aren’t_ lucky... well, the blaze of glory will be right back on the menu.

The two of them manage to get into cover with a few minutes to spare, worming as far as they can back into the shadow of the concrete slab. Spenser is weak and clumsy and his bad leg makes it difficult for him to crawl into position, so Trent just hauls him along ruthlessly, ignoring the faint, stifled sounds of pain.

By the time the tangos make their way inside what’s left of the building, Trent has situated himself up against the wall with a dazed, fading Clay leaned on his shoulder. Trent can feel the fine tremors running through Spenser’s body, can hear the nearly inaudible rasp of his too-shallow, too-rapid breaths.

Clay needs help. Right now, Trent can’t give it. Not without killing both of them.

From out in the main part of the half-collapsed structure comes the crunch of footsteps. A man speaks, terrifyingly close; another answers from across the room. There’s clattering, muttering, more conversation.

Trent waits. His heart pounds. His head throbs. He keeps his fingertips pressed against the inside of Clay’s wrist, reassured by the thump of a rapid but steady pulse that says his teammate is still holding his own. That they still have time. He can still save Spenser if these assholes will just _leave._

Please God let them leave.

Finally, finally, they do.

The silence outside their hiding place has to linger for a while before Trent is able to bring himself to believe it. He waits and then waits some more, as long as he dares, and the voices that faded into the distance don’t return. At last, he pokes his head out to take a look around.

But for them, the building is empty. Darkness has fallen now; there’s only the faintest glimmer of moonlight trickling through to illuminate the small, vacant hole the tangos opened in the far wall. Trent has no choice but to turn on his helmet light and hope that their current cramped position is sufficiently concealed. He isn’t letting Spenser go into hypovolemic shock. Not when there’s something he can do about it.

As soon as he has the transfusion set up and going, Trent switches off the light. He can handle much of the rest by feel.

For some reason, the field transfusion reminds him suddenly of their mission in Sana’a, Yemen. Spenser was a rookie then, still painfully new to the team and trying to find his place on it, and he was all jammed up inside his own head with guilt over shooting a teenage girl and fear that he might do something wrong and accidentally finish her off. It was the first time Trent truly saw their new Bravo Six show uncertainty, vulnerability, a crack in that arrogant know-it-all facade he tried so hard to keep up.

That mission didn’t end the way any of them expected or wanted it to, but it was important all the same. It marked maybe the first time Trent really felt like the cocky rookie was his teammate. While they were working together, fighting to keep Aisha alive, Spenser trusted Trent, respected his knowledge and unquestioningly listened to his advice. It started building a rapport between them that has only grown stronger ever since.

Clay is a solid teammate, a damn good operator and an unshakably loyal friend. They’ve already come much too close to losing him, and that’s not an outcome that will ever be acceptable. If Trent has anything to say about it, the stubborn kid will survive to lead his own team one day. It’ll feed his ego, and he’ll probably be insufferable about it at first, but he’ll also be damn good at it. Trent has no doubt of that.

By the time the transfusion finishes, Spenser’s blood pressure and heart rate have improved and he’s dozing with his head pillowed on Trent’s leg. He’s clearly still uncomfortable, probably in large part due to the leg, but his abdomen isn’t overly rigid and he isn’t in severe pain even though the morphine has worn off, so Trent maintains hope that the bleeding is resolving on its own. Even risks giving Clay a few small sips of water each time he rouses briefly during the night.

Trent is exhausted and his headache just keeps escalating, past the point of simple pain and into the realm of nausea and vertigo, but he can’t let himself sleep. The danger is far from over; there are voices at intervals throughout the night, passing the building but never coming inside. If Clay, hurting and barely coherent, makes a single too-loud noise at the wrong time, they’re both dead. And if Spenser takes a sudden turn for the worse, Trent needs to be awake so he can try to do something about it.

So he doesn’t sleep. He takes more painkillers, praying that they won’t come right back up, and he keeps his fingers on Clay’s pulse point and listens for signs of trouble (or rescue) coming from the outside world.

Dawn marks 24 hours since the initial collapse, and still no one has come for them.

The sounds of distant fighting faded out at some point during the night, which actually probably isn’t a good sign. Means the national military has likely pulled back for the time being, which would make it even harder for a team to safely get in and pull off a rescue.

For now Trent and Clay are on their own, stranded in the middle of enemy territory with limited resources and supplies.

Apparently that alone is not sufficiently bad. Fate has decided it needs to have still _more_ shit in store for them.

First there’s Trent’s headache, which is brutal and relentless, warping his exhaustion into something closer to agony. He keeps taking painkillers, but they’re barely touching it anymore. His head swims and this thoughts are sluggish and he just wants so much to sleep.

Unfortunately, though, that’s not an option. Especially not once it becomes clear that something is very wrong with Clay.

It isn’t his blood pressure this time, nor his heart rate, nor any other telltale sign of internal bleeding. It starts out as just an increased level of pain. Spenser stops dozing and starts lying awake, staring straight upward with glazed eyes, fingernails digging into his palms. He breaks out in a sweat that soaks through his already filthy clothes. Eventually, in a quiet, shaking voice, he asks for morphine.

Trent gives him some. It barely makes a dent. Half an hour later Spenser is writhing, unable to keep still, bouncing his good knee even though doing so surely must jar his broken leg.

“Leg hurts,” he gasps out. “Jesus, Trent. Nothing’s ever…” He draws a choked breath. “Not even... when I got... blown up.” The words trail off into a gut-deep groan, and then Clay clenches his jaw, grinding his teeth so hard that Trent winces at the sound.

His leg shouldn’t be hurting him this badly. Something’s wrong.

Trent really hopes his suspicion isn’t correct, but the signs are there. Of the five P’s that can indicate compartment syndrome, Spenser is exhibiting three of the main ones: pain, paresthesia and pallor. Around the break, his lower leg looks pale and swollen, the skin shiny as a balloon. No pulselessness yet, but that particular symptom often doesn’t appear until after permanent damage has already occurred.

Running a shaking hand over his face, Trent stares down at the swollen leg. This is no environment to be doing surgery in. In his current state, he’s not even sure he’s capable of performing a fasciotomy without making a mistake, injuring the superficial peroneal nerve or the saphenous vein or something else important.

But if Trent doesn’t relieve the pressure, Clay could lose his leg. Hell, he could go into kidney failure. He could die.

How much longer do they have before muscle necrosis starts to set in? Two hours? Three? Does Trent dare wait and hope that Bravo will somehow rescue them before that, manage to get Clay out to a hospital where he can have surgery performed by a competent doctor in a sterile environment?

Outside, there’s nothing but quiet. Wind sings around the corners of the broken building, swirling dust in through the cracks.

Trent closes his eyes, choking on a frustrated sob. He swallows it back down, steels himself, and opens his eyes again. Even the dim light spilling through the breaks in the ceiling is enough to stab like needles into the backs of his eyes. It doesn’t matter, the pain. He can’t let it matter.

He has to act now. Can’t trust that someone will find them. This, opening up Clay’s leg, saving his limb and his life, is all on Trent. And the faster he acts, the better Spenser’s chances of recovery - as long as Trent doesn’t fuck it up, cut through something he shouldn’t or miss decompressing one of the four compartments. He has to be fast and accurate. His hands that keep trying to tremble from the pain in his head, he has to keep them steady.

And Clay, who is already shivering with agony that the morphine can barely touch? Well, Clay is going to get cut wide open, skin and subcutaneous tissue retracted and muscle taken off bone, and he can’t make a sound or they’re dead.

Jesus.

As a general rule, Trent is not afraid of causing his patients pain. Field medicine isn’t and can’t be gentle. His priority is keeping people alive; everything else falls by the wayside and can be dealt with later if need be.

But cutting up a brother and expecting him to stay silent? Telling him that the entire weight of their survival rests on it? That’s a level of cruelty that makes Trent’s skin crawl.

He goes ahead and lets himself feel that for just a few seconds, and then he excises the emotion and locks it away in a little box in the back of his mind. Right now, pain doesn’t matter. Cruelty doesn’t matter. Clay living and making a full recovery, that matters.

Hand on Spenser’s shoulder, Trent leans down and quietly tells him what’s wrong with him, and what has to happen to fix it, and that he has to stay quiet throughout. “Can you do that?” he asks. Clay, pale as paper and shaking uncontrollably, nods.

Trent gives Spenser more morphine, as much as he dares. He shoves a wad of cloth into his mouth and tells him to bite down on it.

Then he digs out supplies, cleans and sterilizes Spenser’s leg as best he can in this godawful environment, takes a deep breath, steadies himself, and starts cutting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. The research required for this chapter was a little intimidating and also meant that I could really only write at my computer, instead of just carrying around a notebook and writing wherever and whenever, which is what I normally do.

Clay stays conscious for a hell of a lot longer than Trent would like him to.

Trent can’t allow himself to worry about that, so he doesn’t. He shuts out the shivering and the quiet, muffled groans and the hitched breathing, and he focuses on steadying his hands and getting this right. He has no mental space to spare for Spenser’s pain - or his own.

_You can do this._ Trent makes the first cut, 2 cm anterior to the fibula, centered over the anterolateral intermuscular septum. The incision needs to extend 15 to 20 cm distally; he stops at what he judges as 15.

That was the easy part. Now comes the hard part, the part where he has to elevate full-thickness skin flaps and incise the anterior and lateral fascia for decompression while avoiding causing damage to major nerves and veins.

Then, after that little walk through hell is over, he’ll have to make a second skin incision, this one 2 cm posterior to the tibia, and essentially do it all again.

Spenser breaks before Trent is able to get halfway through the first longitudinal fascial incision.

Fortunately for both of them, Clay manages to maintain just enough presence of mind to not start yelling. What he does instead is suddenly jerk upright, giving Trent barely enough time to pull the scalpel back. Spenser then rolls to the side, spits out the thick wad of gauze that was between his teeth, and vomits. After the retching finally stops, Clay musters the strength to grab Trent’s arm, latching on tight enough to bruise. Eyes wild and haunted, he gasps out, “Please. Please.”

His barely-audible voice is wrecked, raw and hoarse like he’s been tortured. Like he’s been screaming for hours, for days.

Trent isn’t sure exactly what Spenser is even asking for. Doubts Clay knows either - not anything more specific than, _I can’t do this. Please stop. Please make it stop._

Trent looks down at Clay’s violently shaking fingers clamped over his wrist. At the bloody scalpel in his own hand, and beyond it to Spenser’s damaged leg, the gleaming layers of tissue and muscle already laid bare.

What the fuck is he going to do?

If he gives Clay more morphine, he risks overdosing him - and while, yes, that would likely produce unconsciousness, it also might result in respiratory arrest and death, which would kind of defeat the purpose of all of this.

But if Trent just ignores Spenser’s pleading and keeps going, Clay is going to shatter. That’s clear as day. Everyone has a breaking point, and Spenser is teetering on the edge of his. Trent is willing to bet his teammate is one incision away from losing it, screaming his lungs out, trying to fight. If he does that, then not only will finishing the surgery be impossible, but they’ll also probably both end up dead.

There’s a frozen moment where Trent just stares down at Clay without any idea what to do. Trent’s head feels stuffed full of cotton, and the unrelenting fire of his headache seems to have burned away his ability to reason, to make the quick, confident decisions required of a Tier One medic.

Finally, fingers trembling slightly despite his best efforts, Trent pulls out another vial of morphine.

He won’t give Spenser a whole dose. Just a little more. Enough to hopefully soften things, take the edge off the agony, put him into enough of a stupor that he can endure this.

If worse comes to worst, Trent has naloxone in his kit. He doesn’t want to have to use it, because then Clay will get blindsided by the full force of all this pain, but he will if he has to. As a last resort.

It takes a few seconds, but eventually the morphine starts to kick in. Clay’s fingers on Trent’s wrist loosen. He slowly falls back, eyes half-closed, breathing steady but slower than it should be. Judging by the lines around his eyes, the pain isn’t entirely gone; he’s just now too out of it to care much.

Trent puts the wad of gauze back between Spenser’s teeth, just in case. Then he takes a deep breath and goes back to cutting.

It obviously does still hurt. Clay makes a weak attempt to pull away, but goes still when Trent uses his free hand to hold the leg in place. Spenser is trembling, his half-open eyes staring at nothing. The shivering doesn’t let up, but Clay doesn’t puke again, and he doesn’t make another sound.

Right around the time that Trent finally finishes up with the anterior and lateral compartments, Spenser suddenly, silently passes out.

Trent’s initial knee-jerk reaction is muddle-headed panic. He scrambles to check Clay’s vitals, finding that his teammate’s heart is beating and he’s still breathing steadily, albeit too slowly.

Forcing himself to slow inhale, slow exhale, Trent sits back and takes a few seconds to try to get his hands to stop shaking.

Jesus, he’s off. Whatever happened to his head has him rattled. Hard.

Clay losing consciousness is probably a good thing. Gives Trent a chance to finish the surgery without worrying about the possible repercussions of the pain caused by each cut he makes.

Steadying himself, Trent goes back to work. He’s so tired, and his vision keeps trying to unfocus, but he has to keep it together. Just for a little longer.

He makes the posteromedial skin incision, retracts the saphenous vein and nerve, decompresses the final two compartments, and then he packs and wraps everything with saline-soaked gauze. VAC is better for fasciotomies, but they’re in a bombed-out building instead of a hospital, so this is just gonna have to do for now.

Clay lost a bit more blood than Trent would have liked - having access to electrocautery certainly would have been helpful - but the bleeding seems to be under control now and his BP is still okay, thank God.

Spenser has a long and agonizing recovery ahead of him. He might need skin grafts. He’ll be lucky as hell if he avoids nerve damage. But if he just gets to keep his leg, have a chance of operating again one day, Trent will consider that a win compared to the alternative.

He sits back, sips some water, and watches his patient breathe.

Trent has lost track of how long it’s been since the last time he slept. Between that, the head injury and the incredible stress of the surgery, he’s so exhausted that he feels like his head is trying to float right off his body.

It doesn’t matter. He can’t let himself fall asleep, because he damn near overdosed his teammate on morphine, and if Clay stops breathing, Trent has to be awake to do something about it.

Spenser will not die quietly on the ground two feet away. Trent won’t allow that to happen.

The afternoon wears on, still and quiet but for the sound of children playing in the street outside, kicking a soccer ball that occasionally bounces off the outer wall of the building Trent and Clay are currently in. Just a few hours of ceasefire and out come the kids, finding ways to play even in the midst of war. The thought of it makes Trent’s throat clog, his chest feel heavy.

He loses track of time, starts drifting into fractured microsleeps that always end in a surge of pure terror. Each time, Trent jolts awake, jerks his head back up, presses his fingertips against Spenser’s carotid, rests a hand on his chest to feel the rise and fall.

Clay keeps breathing, slowly at first but then more normally as the morphine starts to work its way out of his system. His return to consciousness is gradual and full of confusion. He mumbles incoherently; doesn’t know where he is; asks for Sonny, Jason, Stella. At least he seems capable of understanding Trent’s repeated, whispered warnings to keep his voice down. With the kids playing so close by, they’ve got very little margin for error on that front.

By the time the sun goes down, Spenser has revived enough to sip some water, eat a small piece of a protein bar, swallow some Vicodin. He’s hurting and confused but he’s hanging in there. Trent figures that description probably applies to both of them, but as the more coherent and less severely injured of the two, it’s up to him to keep things together.

So the night comes, and he doesn’t sleep then either. Not for longer than a blurred, panic-inducing millisecond at a time. Jolting awake always leaves Trent’s head spinning with pain, and eventually he starts dry-heaving each time, unable to keep down even a sip of water. If this goes on for much longer, dehydration is going to become a serious issue.

Still, it turns out it’s a good thing Trent didn’t let himself fall asleep, because at some point just before dawn, Clay’s blood pressure suddenly tanks and he stops waking up.

There are a lot of things that could be causing the decline. Trent gave Spenser antibiotics and hasn’t seen any clear signs of infection, but a surgery like that in an environment like this... yeah, sepsis is a possibility. It’s also possible that Clay’s body is just reacting to the blood loss and the tremendous amount of physical trauma he has been through in the past two days.

Regardless of the underlying cause, the bottom line is that Spenser’s BP needs to come back up or he’s going to slip away.

There’s no more blood left, and Trent isn’t a match for Clay, meaning a direct donation isn’t an option. What Trent does have, though, is IV saline, and he’ll push fluids until he runs out of them or Spenser’s condition improves. Whichever comes first.

_Or someone rescues us,_ Trent’s desperate, muddled brain adds, but he brusquely dismisses the thought. He can’t rely on anyone else right now. This is all on him.

It takes him a few tries, but he finally gets an IV started. He puts a hand on Clay’s neck, wincing at the too-cold skin, to monitor his pulse.

The sun rises. Spenser doesn’t wake up. His condition improves a little; declines a little. Trent switches out bags of saline. Pukes up stomach acid. Doesn’t sleep.

Mid-morning, he starts to drift. Can’t really feel his hands anymore. Clay is breathing, right? Still breathing. Still alive.

Trent is staring blankly at the hole in the wall when Cerberus comes scrambling through it, followed closely by Brock.

Bravo Five’s eyes widen. “Found them! We need a medic here, now!”

Trent isn’t sure it’s real. Not until hands are on him, easing him away from Spenser, gently lying him down on his back on the floor.

He can’t sleep. It’s not safe to sleep.

“Clay,” he manages, his voice slurred. “Clay, he’s-”

Brock, shaking a little, cups Trent’s face, leans down close and says fiercely, “He’s alive. You did good, okay? We’ve got it now. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

_Safe._

There are hands on him, steady and careful. The room is full of voices: Sonny, Jason, Ray, Alpha Team. He isn’t alone. Not anymore.

Trent breathes out, and then he closes his eyes and falls into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated and help me talk myself out of my deep-seated ‘you’re probably just annoying everybody by posting so many stories’ complex.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all are the best. Thanks for all the kind, encouraging words.

Trent wakes up in the infirmary, with no idea how long he’s been out.

Panic claws at his throat. It’s only the gentle but firm hand on his chest that keeps him from jumping out of bed, out of his own skin.

“Calm down, now.” Sonny’s drawl is softer than usual. “Move too fast and you’re gonna start puking again. Just take it easy.”

Head throbbing in a muted, cottony sort of way, Trent blinks until he manages to bring Sonny’s face into focus. Quinn gives him a faint smile. He looks tired, and Trent knows him well enough to recognize the strain and sadness in the creases around his eyes. It weights Trent’s lungs with sudden fear, and he pulls himself together enough to rasp, “Clay?”

Sonny glances away, and for an instant the world seems to freeze like it’s gotten stuck inside a snow globe. Trent doesn’t breathe until Quinn responds, “He’s alive. Stable, I guess, but they sent him back stateside. Said he needed more treatment for his leg and they couldn’t handle it here.”

That explains why Sonny looks sad. A badly injured Clay getting airlifted back home by himself is a terrible jolt of deja vu, but relief suffuses Trent’s chest anyway, because it’s a hell of a lot better than what he thought the answer might be. And while it sucks having Spenser sent away again, at least this time there’s only about three weeks left in their deployment.

After a few more seconds, it clicks in Trent’s brain that Clay was sent home but he wasn’t, which actually surprises him a little. “Me?” He asks tentatively, his voice coming out a little stronger and less rusty.

Sonny pats Trent’s shoulder and gives him a sincere, reassuring grin that softens the exhaustion in his eyes. “You got a concussion and a nice little cerebral contusion there, but doc said he thinks it’ll heal up all right on its own. They want to keep an eye on you for a few days, though, and you probably ought not to go hittin’ your head again anytime soon.”

Trent gives himself a minute to digest that and figure out how he feels about it. There’s really no such thing as a minor brain injury - they are by their nature serious - but if he doesn’t need surgery, that must mean the bleeding has stopped on its own and his intracranial pressure is good. If he’s lucky, give it a few weeks and he’ll be back to feeling like himself again.

If he isn’t... well, no need to unnecessarily borrow trouble. He’ll cross that bridge if he comes to it.

A knock on the doorframe heralds Jason’s arrival, at which point Sonny gets up, makes some sort of vague excuse about having something to do, and skedaddles.

“Hey,” Jason says, taking a seat in the chair Sonny just vacated. He smiles, but it’s forced and doesn’t reach his eyes. “How you feeling?”

Trent’s brain is still fuzzy and lagging, so it takes him a while to decide how he should answer that. There’s pain, but it’s muffled. Mostly he just feels achy and distantly nauseated and tired. Finally he settles on, “Okay.”

Jason nods. Though his expression says he doesn’t really buy it, he lets it go. Looks away, fidgets, and finally says, “Listen, man, it’s... I’m...”

“’S okay, Jace,” Trent tries to assure him, but Jason shakes his head sharply, his gaze snapping back to Trent’s face.

“Fifty-three hours,” Hayes says quietly. “You and Clay were stuck in that building for 53 hours. There was a lot of bullshit to wade through. Local government didn’t want us going back in. I think Mandy about lost her voice arguing with them. But the bottom line is that you needed us and we weren’t there, and I’m sorry for that.”

Trent’s throat feels thick. He nods, then flinches when the ache in his head kicks up a notch in response. “Not your fault,” he tells his team leader.

Blowing out a slow breath, Jason looks down at his hands. “Maybe not, but it I’m sorry anyway.” There’s a pause, and then he adds, “We saw Clay’s leg.”

Trent winces. He’s got only vague, exhaustion-blurred memories of that whole ordeal, but he’s guessing it couldn’t have been pretty.

Jason continues, “Doc said he probably would have lost the leg if you hadn’t done that surgery. In a bombed-out building. While you had a brain injury.” He pauses again, then says, “No idea how the hell you pulled that off, but Spenser owes you, man. We all do.”

Trent blinks against the burn of tears at the corners of his eyes. Jesus, he hates the way concussions screw with emotional regulation.

At the moment he doesn’t _feel_ like a hero or a miracle worker. He feels unsettled and wrung out like an old dishrag, and his mind keeps circling back to the idea that there should have been something more he could have done. Something to get them out of there sooner, or at least to keep things from getting so bad.

After a minute, Jason gets up, squeezes Trent’s arm, and tells him warmly, “Get some rest, okay? We’ll let you know if we hear anything new about Spenser.”

Trent nods again, and then he gets descended upon by an overly cheery nurse who spots his grimace and insists on giving him more pain meds that send him spiraling straight back into the quiet dark.

The next few days are pretty boring. Trent stays in the infirmary for observation, and they keep giving him meds that knock him out. Most of the time Brock is there when he wakes up, which is a good thing, because Trent keeps snapping from sleep straight to consciousness in a brutal jolt that leaves him gasping, heart pounding like he’s just been fighting for his life.

Having Brock nearby does help, though it still usually takes a minute for Trent to orient himself and get a handle on his emotions. He blames that on the meds, or the head injury, or maybe some combination of both.

It isn’t until he gets released from the infirmary and is allowed to return to Bravo’s quarters that he realizes the meds probably weren’t the problem. If anything, they might have been disguising the true extent of the issue.

His head is doing okay, more or less. About as well as could be expected. Yeah, he’s dizzy sometimes, and he has piercing headaches and constant low-level nausea, but he can handle all that. None of that is the real issue.

The real issue is that he can’t sleep.

Oh, he can _fall_ asleep just fine. Problem is he doesn’t stay that way. If he’s lucky, he might make it an hour before waking up soaked in sweat, heart thrumming as he scrambles out of the bottom bunk, crushed by an overpowering sense that there’s something important he desperately needs to be doing.

He doesn’t dream, at least not that he remembers. He just wakes up, terrified and already in motion, his rattled brain convinced that he’s neglecting his duties and now someone is going to die because of it.

The panic and adrenaline don’t mix well with the head injury. Half the time he ends up leaned over, hands on knees as he tries to breathe through the pain that pierces like spikes through his eyes. Sometimes he has to stumble out of the room to go dry heave in the bathroom, trying to stay quiet enough to not disturb Brock and Cerberus, asleep on the top bunk.

Clay’s absence is everywhere and in everything. It shadows the entire team, lingering like a too-familiar wound. News on Bravo Six trickles in a little at a time, and at least it is consistently positive: Spenser has a long road ahead of him but is expected to ultimately make a full recovery.

Upon hearing that, Trent breathes a sigh of relief and tells himself things will get better now. Now that he knows he didn’t fail, that he somehow managed to avoid irreparably fucking up Clay’s leg and ruining his career, things will get better.

They don’t.

During the middle of one particularly bad night, Trent gives up and goes to sit outside, letting the dry, desert-cool air wash over his flushed skin.

He feels guilty, because the healthy members of Bravo just got back from a mission that kept them up for 36 hours straight. Brock needs uninterrupted sleep. His roommate’s stupid nocturnal freakouts are probably preventing him from getting it.

In addition to the guilt, Trent also just generally feels like shit, because he’s recovering from a serious head injury and hasn’t slept more than two hours at a stretch in days. Not an ideal combination.

He leans forward, scrubbing his hands over his scrunched-up face. He’s too tired to even feel so much as a twinge of embarrassment when his fingers come back wet with tears.

What the hell is this?

He’s an experienced Tier One operator, for God’s sake. He’s supposed to be able to rack out anywhere, anytime, so why can’t he sleep in his own bed without waking up 30 minutes later feeling like he’s having a heart attack?

“Planning on sleeping at some point?” Brock asks quietly from behind him.

Speaking of heart attacks. Trent nearly rockets out of his own skin, then bites back a curse of frustration. Since when did he get so jumpy? And easy to sneak up on, for that matter?

“Sorry,” Brock says softly, and with more perceptiveness than Trent is entirely comfortable with. Brock then lowers himself down to sit, gently bumping Trent’s shoulder with his own.

“You should be asleep,” Trent tells his teammate.

Brock leans up against Trent’s shoulder and stays this time, the contact warm and grounding. “So should you,” he says mildly, and hands over a water bottle. Trent drinks.

There’s a pause, gentle and comfortable. Shoulder to shoulder, they look up at the star-scattered sky. Finally Trent admits, his voice on the edge of cracking, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Brock doesn’t answer right away, just leans in a little closer. Finally he says, “Back there, you had to stay awake the whole time to take care of Clay, right?”

Trent clears his throat. Takes another sip of water. “Yeah.”

“I think sometimes, after something like that, your brain just gets stuck in survival mode,” Brock continues quietly. “Takes a little while for it to catch on that you’re not there anymore. But it will.”

Brock sounds so steady and certain that it’s hard to not believe him, at least a little bit.

Except the days move on, and things still don’t get better.

Trent tries taking Ambien, which is a mistake. Yes, he does sleep longer than usual, nearly four hours straight, but he spends almost the entire time trapped in hellish nightmares of brothers and loved ones dying beneath his hands or disappearing the instant he turns his back. Then he wakes up so disoriented and combative that Brock pretty much has to sit on him.

Yeah. Not trying that again anytime soon.

Their time downrange is winding down, little more than week left, and still Trent flounders.

His head injury isn’t healing as fast as he’d hoped it would; the lack of sleep probably has something to do with that. He has constant headaches and he’s perpetually tired and confused and clumsy.

Jason, Ray, Sonny and Brock are in and out. In a way it’s almost easier when they’re gone, because then at least Trent can let go of any pretense of being okay. Can let himself be as miserable as he feels.

One night when they’re out on a mission, Trent goes to sit outside again. It isn’t long before he hears the soft ticking of claws as Cerberus, who’d been asleep on Brock’s bed, comes out to join him.

The dog always mopes when Bravo goes on missions without him. Most of the time he barely even leaves Brock’s bed for the entire time they’re gone. Now, though, he makes a beeline for Trent and gently nudges up against his hand.

“Hey, boy.” Trent pats him, scratches behind his ears. “You miss Brock?”

Cerberus whines softly and licks at Trent’s fingers.

On impulse, Trent slides down to sit on the ground so he can more easily pull the dog into his lap. Leaning forward, he laces his arms around Cerberus, burying his face in the soft fur. Trent closes his eyes, listens to the steady thump of Cerb’s heartbeat, and tries to breathe through the tension in his shoulders and the pain in his temples.

“Gonna be okay, boy,” he whispers, tears burning his eyes. “We’re all gonna be okay.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy SEAL Team day! Our show is finally back!

During the middle of the night a week before the end of their deployment, Trent snaps awake like he always does. Almost immediately, a gentle hand comes to rest on his arm.

It catches him off guard, ramping up the stress response for just an instant until he hears Ray’s soft, sleepy voice say, “Hey, brother. You’re good. I got you.”

In the near-total darkness, Trent blinks in muddled confusion. What the hell is Ray Perry doing in his and Brock’s room in the middle of the night? Sonny showing up might be less surprising, given that Clay’s absence has left him all alone in his room and he’s obviously been missing his best friend, but Ray is supposed to be rooming with Jason.

Trent digs around for his phone. The dim light of its screen reveals that Ray has put a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor next to the bottom bunk.

Trent’s face heats with embarrassment. This isn’t... they shouldn’t have to...

“Hey.” Ray pats his arm to get his attention. “You’ve taken care of all of us God only knows how many times over the years. It would make us feel a hell of a lot better if you’d let us return the favor for once, okay?” When Trent doesn’t respond, Ray adds, “Besides, Clay isn’t here right now for us to fuss over, so that leaves you.” Another pat, and then he adds authoritatively, “Now go back to sleep.”

It’s Bravo Two saying it, so Trent obeys.

Of course he doesn’t actually stay asleep, but the next time, Ray is there almost before Trent has a chance to come fully awake. Ray squeezes his hand and tells him quietly but firmly, “We are right here. We’ve got this handled. You can sleep.”

The next night it’s Brock on the floor next to Trent’s bed, instead of in the top bunk where he belongs.

The night after that, Brock returns to his own bunk and Sonny takes the spot on the floor. “Nighty-night, buddy,” Quinn announces cheerfully, and then almost immediately starts to snore.

Trent figures the racket will prevent him from sleeping, but oddly enough it seems to have the opposite effect. He racks out and wakes up nearly five hours later, confused but not panicked. When he starts to stir, the snoring stops. Sonny reaches up, pats his wrist, and says drowsily, “We’re good, Bravo Four. Go back to sleep.”

Trent does. When he wakes again, it’s morning.

The problem isn’t solved, exactly - life is rarely that simple - but the tide does seem to have turned. The next night, Jason’s shift, Trent only wakes up twice in nine hours, and each time he falls back asleep soon after being reassured that his team is here and has the situation under control.

And then, finally, they get to go home.

Clay doesn’t meet them at the airfield this time; it’s been less than two weeks since his most recent medical procedure, so he isn’t really up to traveling even the relatively short distance. That means they have to go to him.

At Clay’s apartment, Stella answers the door, breaking into a small smile when she sees them all standing in the hallway. Stepping back, she motions them in while pressing a finger to her lips. Trent follows her gaze to the couch, where Clay is sound asleep with his splinted, heavily bandaged leg propped up on pillows. One hand is tucked palm-up beneath his head, and his hair is wildly tousled. Despite the beard, Spenser somehow manages to look all of about eight years old.

It’s a testament to how drugged and exhausted Clay must be that they don’t wake him right away, especially given Sonny’s apparent inability to be quiet. (Trent suspects Quinn is probably actually _trying_ to wake Spenser because he’s impatient to talk to him.)

While they wait, Trent gets ushered to a chair by Ray and Sonny. Even though he’s been feeling some better, headaches finally starting to ease off, the guys are still being almost obnoxiously protective of him. It’s equal parts annoying and heartwarming.

For a while, Trent just watches the kid sleep, taking in the steady rise and fall of Clay’s chest, the healthy pink color of his bare left foot. He’s here and alive and going to recover. Some buried subconscious part of Trent couldn’t quite manage to truly believe that until now.

Even though Spenser is still injured and still has a long way to go, just seeing him like this, peaceful and cared for and not in agony, is like a balm to Trent’s soul.

Clay wakes up groggy and out of it, his eyes half glued shut, but his entire face lights up like Christmas when he catches sight of his team.

There’s the usual round of greetings, gentle teasing and careful hugs. Spenser beams at his teammates, taking the teasing in stride. He interacts with everyone, but his gaze keeps finding its way back to Trent like a compass drawn north.

Trent is the last one to lean in for a hug, careful of Clay’s cracked ribs. Spenser holds on tight, asking in a quiet voice, “You good?”

Throat suddenly clogged, Trent pulls back and gives a nod.

He’s a hell of a lot better now.

Clay squeezes Trent’s shoulder and gives him one of those soft, open, genuine smiles that makes him look like a little kid. “You saved my ass. And, well, my leg.”

Trent shrugs, looking away.

“Hey.” Spenser’s tone turns firm. “I don’t remember a whole lot of what happened while we were stuck in that building, but I remember enough to know I would have died if you hadn’t been there.” He waits until Trent meets his gaze before finishing, “Thank you.”

A gentle touch to Trent’s arm draws his attention to the fact that the rest of his teammates have moved up close to surround him. Jason slings an arm around his shoulders from the left, and Brock from the right.

The warmth of their quiet support makes Trent damn near cry. He has to clear his throat before responding a bit gruffly, “Just doing my job. Can’t let y’all go getting your dumb asses killed.”

Clay grins and rolls his eyes, and the seriousness of the moment passes, leaving Trent with a lingering glow of warmth in his chest.

Jason grills Spenser on his rehab regimen and how long it’s likely to take. Sonny gleefully offers to bring a cattle prod to help out if Clay ever finds himself lacking motivation during physical therapy, which earns him a punch to the arm that he makes no real effort to dodge. Stella, hanging a bit awkwardly in the background, offers to make tea, which Trent takes her up on just so she’ll have a way to feel useful.

They stay until Spenser’s eyes begin to droop and he starts periodically making pained little grimaces he’s probably barely even aware of. Stella brings him pain meds and a glass of milk, which the rest of Bravo takes as their cue to head out so the kid can get some more rest.

That leaves Trent with no choice but to face the reality of his own empty home.

He’s been single for a good six months now, the breakup having occurred well before their most recent deployment, and somehow he’s still struggling to adjust to the quiet. Most of the time it just gives him a faint sense of melancholy, a sort of ache that often drives him out into the yard or the garage so he won’t have to deal with it.

Now, though, the silence has taken on a whole new dimension. Especially at night when he tries to sleep.

It isn’t as bad as it was right at first, but Trent definitely takes a few steps backward in the echoing quiet house without his brothers there to provide reassurance. He wakes probably four or five times during the first night, and each time it takes him a while to go back to sleep.

The aloneness lasts for all of two days before Brock shows up with Cerberus, claiming the dog is going stir-crazy in Brock’s small apartment. He asks if they can stay at Trent’s where there’s more space. It’s transparent as hell - Trent knows how good Brock is at making sure his dog has sufficient exercise no matter where they are - but he is too grateful to call Brock on it.

They end up both falling asleep in the living room, Brock and Cerb on the bigger sofa and Trent on the smaller one, and when Trent wakes up in the middle of the night, his best friend is there.

Brock stays for three days. When he leaves, Sonny shows up, claiming that a stripper he slept with keeps showing up at his door, and he needs to lie low for a while until she loses interest.

It’s even more blatantly untrue than Brock’s excuse, given that Sonny has clearly made an uncharacteristic and surprisingly long-lasting foray into monogamy, even if he still isn’t willing to talk about it. Trent just rolls his eyes fondly and steps aside to let Sonny in.

Things continue in that same vein for a while, with Trent’s teammates finding ways to never leave him alone for more than a day at a time. Gradually, with their support, things improve.

Then, a few weeks after their return, Spenser is the one who comes to stay.

The fractures and incisions are healing well and his status has progressed to weight bearing as tolerated, but he’s still struggling to get around and needs help with some of his ADLs. He texts to explain that Stella is going to a conference that will have her out of town for a few days, and asks if he can hang out with Trent until she comes back.

Of course the answer is yes. Trent picks him up and brings him over, gets him situated on the big sofa in the living room, and then crashes on the other couch so he’ll be nearby if Spenser needs anything during the night.

Trent jolts awake at some point in the wee hours of the morning, pulse pounding, eyes wide open in the darkness. He listens, trying to determine whether it was a sound that woke him, or just his own paranoid brain.

“Hey,” Clay says softly from the other side of the coffee table. He sounds just a little groggy, but his voice is strong and steady. “Everything’s good, man. I’ve got this watch, so go to sleep, okay?”

Smiling into the dark, Trent does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s all! As always, thanks for reading. ❤️


End file.
